Strange News from Another Star
by Gater101
Summary: Part Three. Wherein Sherlock isn't really a sociopath, John reaches out and a trip to Edinburgh occurs.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Strange News from Another Star [1/3]  
Summary: Part One. Wherein Harry is in one of her moods, Sherlock finds he doesn't know everything and the sky is ablaze with orange fire.  
Characters: John, Sherlock, Harry, Clara & Mrs Hudson  
Pairing: Harry/Clara, John-Sherlock  
Rating: T (just in case)  
Notes: Continuation of the story 'Topical', in which John has lunch with his sister and Sherlock is the topic of conversation.

**i**

Harry was in one her moods. John could tell the instant he set foot into the bar he'd agreed to meet her in and he seriously contemplated turning around and leaving. He could call her on the way back to Baker Street and tell her Sherlock needed him. But then she looked up, her eyes glassy but clear and he knew he couldn't leave.

"John," she said quietly, her voice thick but strangely flat and John tried to catch a glimpse of her eyes, her pupils. They were a little dilated but nothing unusual given the lighting of the pub and he wasn't sure whether to be pleased or distraught by that. He'd seen her like this a few times when they were younger, when she would go for days without speaking to anyone, merely floating through the days in a bleary haziness until she appeared, rejuvenated, at the other end. He'd known about her struggle with bi-polar long before she did; combined with her alcoholism... "I wasn't sure you were going to come."

He tried to smile as he slid onto the bar stool next to her but it fell flat.

"Well, I am." He flagged the waiter down and ordered a half pint of lager and indicated Harry's almost empty glass. "What are you drinking?"

Harry looked up to the waiter, bypassing John's gaze.

"Just a Sprite, thanks." John couldn't keep his eyebrows from hitching at that and when Harry turned to him, she tried to level him with a glare that fell far short of severe. "I'm trying to stop. Or cut back, at least at first."

John started. He'd been on at Harry for iyears/i to stop drinking and when it didn't result in them screaming and shouting at one another, it lead to them not talking for months.

"Why?"

Harry laughed but it was a hollow sound.

"You already have the list memorised in your head; all the reasons you recite at me every time we argue are relevant here."

John frowned, turning his body more towards his sister, studying her. He was no Sherlock Holmes, but neither was he a simpleton. He could see dark circles under her eyes, wrinkles that weren't there before, lines of tension that crippled her lips, her long slender hands no longer just islender/i but skinny. The top she wore was loose and floaty, the cardigan thick and baggy on her arms and her normally well kept blond hair was pulled back into a messy loose ponytail. She wore no makeup.

"I'm just... why now?"

She sighed and rested her elbows on the bar, staring straight ahead at the optics. John knew she wasn't there with him, not completely and the fact that she iwasn't there/i and trying to stop drinking scared him a lot than he thought it would. He felt a tight knot form in his stomach, a thickness about his throat that was only exacerbated when he thought back to how she was not even ten days ago; laughing and joking and even though she had made her way through half a bottle of wine in about twenty minutes, she was _happy_. It was a far cry from the woman sitting in front of him now.

"Why not now?" John drew his eyebrows together. "I've lost everything, John." He looked away then, uncertain what he was supposed to say, if anything at all. "I want to have a baby." John's jaw dropped and he spun on his chair to face her. She still didn't look at him. "First it's the alcohol, then the pills. Then maybe they'll consider me."

John thought about the long lineage of mental health problems, of the likelihood that the donor would have mental health problems – or worse.

"I don't think-"

"My biological clock is running out, John. I'm thirty six years old. If I don't get clean this year then I might be too old and then what will I have? A broken marriage, a shitty flat that I won't be able to afford because the likelihood of me being made redundant in the next downsizing at the office are ridiculously high and... I need something, John. I need something to hold me here."

"What do you mean, 'hold you here'?"

She waved her hand around in that dismissive gesture he had grown to abhor; it did little to appease him.

"It's just London. It's so oppressive at this time of year."

He scoffed.

"What, spring?" She shrugged and the vacant look re-entered her eyes. He didn't like it, at all. He covered her wrist with his hand, feeling the thick wool beneath his fingers and palm. She turned her head down to stare at the contact before lifting her eyes to his, her expression quietly surprised. "Harriet, what aren't you telling me?"

She studied him for a moment and though her stare wasn't quite as 'I-can-see-through-you-to-your-very-soul' as Sherlock's, it wasn't entirely without an unnerving quality. He didn't look away though and was rewarded with a small, tired but entirely genuine smile from Harriet.

"Nothing. I'm just... it's hard. I miss Clara. I miss drinking." She eyed the glass that John hadn't realised had been placed in front of him and he made a mental note to remember to pay the tab. John felt a stab of guilt for not retracting his order when Harriet had told him she wasn't drinking and pushed the glass away. Harriet's smile dimmed and she closed her eyes, shaking her head minutely and she sighed. "I need a holiday." She let out an airy laugh. "I might book up somewhere with my redundancy package," she continued with a bitter lilt to her voice that John was sure she was trying to hide.

"Harriet..." But he had nothing else to say, so he simply shook his head and resettled against the bar.

"We didn't finish talking about Sherlock Holmes," Harriet said some long moments later and John turned to her with a half amused smile.

"I think we have better things to talk about than my flatmate."

Harry tilted her head and squinted her eyes at John, her eyes glittering with barely suppressed humour and John would _gladly _talk about Sherlock if it kept that smile on her face.

"Quite." She smirked. "Tell me about _you _and Sherlock."

John rolled his eyes and smirked to the bar top.

"There is nothing to tell. Really. Last week, he was just..." He shook his head. "That's his version of humour."

Harriet smirked and laughed lightly.

"It was pretty funny."

"No, it wasn't."

"It really was." John rolled his eyes again but smiled. "He's gorgeous, by the way," she remarked into the silence that surrounded them then and John tilted his head towards her slightly.

"Is he?" Harry hummed in the back of her throat and John huffed slightly. "I hadn't noticed." But he had, of course, and the look Harry sent him let him know that she knew that as well as he did. "He plays the violin at three in the morning. He's not normal."

Harry waggled her eyebrows salaciously and smirked even as John felt his cheeks heat, knowing what she was thinking.

"Talented fingers then?"

"Shut up!" he laughed, slightly mortified and shifted the conversation to their parents.

They stayed until the crowd got rowdy with those revellers who were out for the night and the office workers out for a post-office drink went home. As they made their way out the door into the still cool spring night air, Harry tugged her cardigan tighter around her and fastened it with a belt she pulled from her bag and John laughed slightly shaking his head, even as he zipped up his own jacket.

"I'm sorry about earlier," Harriet said to the space next to John's face but he shook his head. "I don't mean to worry you."

John smiled then and reached out to touch her arm again. She followed the motion, staring at the contact. He pulled his hand back after a few moments when his mobile vibrated in his pocket but he ignored it, knowing already that it would be a text from Holmes.

"I'll speak to you soon, all right?"

Harriet nodded but she looked contemplative again, her eyes fogging over for a moment before she smiled and rushed to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. He was startled but managed to recover enough to laugh lightly in her ear as he curled his own arms around her waist.

"I love you, John. I don't think we say that to each other enough. And even though we argue and whatever just... Yeah. I love you, all right?"

He pulled back from her, staring down at her face but she was smiling up at him – perhaps a little sadly – and he squeezed her shoulder.

"You're really freaking me out, you know."

She grinned and laughed and he wondered when it was that she had become such a good actress.

"Sorry."

He frowned but shook it off and squeezed her shoulder again.

"I'll ring you tomorrow, okay?"

She nodded, already half into a world of her own. John pulled back from her and she smiled, lifting her iPod out of her pocket and slipped her headphones over her ears.

"Better than mufflers," she responded to his amused grimace before she spun on her heel and flounced off in the direction of the underground station.

John watched her go before turning and walking back towards Baker Street. He fished his phone from his pocket and opened the text.

**_Bring food  
SH _**

He didn't bother responding.

**i-1**

"Didn't you get my text?"

John sighed as he picked his way through the debris of Holmes' night in to the kitchen.

"I did, yes."

"I told you to bring food."

John held up the Tesco bags in his hands and shook them slightly, the plastic rattling in a soft rasp.

"I did."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes as he leapt from his armchair and John glanced at the nicotine patches on his arm (_two, a quiet night_). Sherlock followed him into the kitchen, where John began to pull items from the bag.

"That's not food. Those are ingredients."

John huffed out a laugh and manoeuvred around Sherlock, pulling open cupboard doors in an attempt to find space amongst Sherlock's chemical paraphernalia.

"Yes. And together, they make food," John said slowly as he moved back to the bags – once again, required to skirt around Sherlock who was standing most inconveniently in the middle of the small aisle left by the worktop and Sherlock's worktable.

"But we don't cook."

John sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Just because we _don't _doesn't mean we _can't_."

Sherlock was silent for a moment and when he turned around, Sherlock was frowning down at the packet of mince in disdain.

"Well _I _can't."

"You also didn't know who the Prime Ministers were. Just goes to show you can't be good at everything."

Sherlock huffed and twitched his head in an attempt to move his fringe from his eyes – _he needs a hair cut_, John noted before urging the thought away.

"I'm good – great, actually – at things of importance."

John scoffed but turned away from Sherlock's narrowed gaze.

"And cooking isn't one of them."

"Not when there's twenty four hour eateries all around London." John didn't bother to reply, too amused by Sherlock's vehemence to bother arguing with him. There was a long moment and John knew that Sherlock was most likely baffled by John's lack of response. "What are we having, then?" Sherlock asked and John held his breath when he felt Sherlock's heat at his back, the soft breath tickling John's neck as he peered over John's shoulder at the ingredients scattered across the worktop.

"Spaghetti bolognaise," he managed in a normal voice, smiling slightly when Sherlock made a sound of annoyance and twirled away from his back.

"Ugh, boring!"

John reached for the packet beside him and held it up without turning round.

"I'm putting chorizo in yours."

"Hm. You didn't buy any sauce."

John turned then and stared at Sherlock askance before shaking his head and turning back to the worktop. He opened a few drawers and finally pulled out a couple of knives, a chopping block from one of the cupboards and a pot and frying pan from another.

"I'm going to make sauce."

"Really?" Sherlock almost sounded amazed and John laughed lightly again. Sometimes, Sherlock really was like a child. "Do you mind if I watch? It could prove to be useful."

John held his hands up and hid his smile.

"By all means." Sherlock stood at his back again. "But sit down. You're in my way."

Sherlock let out a startled breath but did as John bade and sat in the chair that no doubt had seen too many miniature chemical explosions.

When the sauce was boiling and the mince sizzling in the pan with the garlic and onions, John turned to Sherlock who had been silent throughout the entire procedure.

"I didn't know you could cook," Sherlock murmured as he stared at the frying pan and John shook his head and laughed.

"We established that you don't know everything." Sherlock glared at him but the severity of it was tempered by the small smile that flitted about around his lips. "I had to learn to cook or me and Harriet would have starved." Sherlock frowned, his eyes instantly taking on that intense stare John had come to know. He moved in before Sherlock could try and deduce anything. "Harriet is older but she can't even boil water without it turning into a disaster zone. My parents worked shifts so if we wanted to eat at regular hours we had to - iI/i had to learn how to do it myself."

Sherlock sniffed, put out that John had cut off his no doubt entirely icorrect/i diatribe about John's younger life, before standing and moving to the cooker. John narrowed his eyes, ready to defend his food, but Sherlock simply stared at it for a long moment before turning to John with a dangerous glint in his eye.

"It remains to be seen if you can cook _well_." And then he flounced out of the kitchen and dropped into his armchair, legs and feet sprawled out in front of him. "How _is _your sister, by the way?"

John hesitated a moment too long and turned his eyes from the sight of Sherlock lounging.

"She's fine."

John heard Sherlock take a breath, pause and then let it out.

"You say that a lot, you know. I wonder how fine your food will be."

John bit back his relieved laugh but turned to finish off their dinner.

Twenty minutes later, John smirked.

"Satisfied?"

Sherlock nodded, his orange rimmed lips quirking up at the edges.

"We're never going to Angelo's again."

**ii**

_Harry, it's John. You freaked me out last night so call me when you get this. Uh, bye _

**iii**

"I'm sorry, _what_?" Because surely he must have heard wrong.

"I asked Sherlock to be my sperm donor."

**iv**

"John's not here," a voice said from in the room that Mrs Hudson led her to and she turned to the woman who simply smiled indulgently and shook her head.

"In you go, dear."

"A cup of tea would be nice, Mrs Hudson!"

Harriet watched Mrs Hudson roll her eyes as she made her way back down the stair they had moments before just climbed.

"You know where the kettle is, dear."

Harriet's eyebrow fluttered once before she pushed the door to the sitting room of her brother's flat open. And then she faltered. The place was a mess. Boxes filled with papers of manila folders covered most of the floor and most of a long table that she could see used to act as a sideboard; a grey-blue dressing gown was lying in a heap on the floor at the back of the couch as though the discarder had been aiming for the couch but missed. There was a skull on the mantelpiece. She turned around on her heel, taking in the mini-lab in the kitchen, the jars of who knows what that lined the walls, glass shards from who knows what.

And then there Sherlock Holmes standing in the midst of it all and despite the fact that she was unapologetically gay, she felt her breath catch in the back of her throat. She didn't know how her brother could share the same flat as the man and not be half-mad with desire. The light streamed in from the window, backlighting him and she took in his apparel: light grey lounge pants that had the effect of looseness but in fact were tapered against Sherlock's long, lean legs; a light blue tee shirt that was moulded to his surprisingly broad shoulders; his hair a wavy mess on his head.

"I have no idea how my brother can live like this," she said eventually after de-snaring herself from Sherlock's gaze.

Sherlock tilted his head as though assessing her and she barely refrained from fidgeting.

"Your brother has a startling ability to adapt to his surroundings." She quirked an eyebrow and a smile flittered across his face, so brief that she almost missed it. "Even so, it's not usually as messy as this. No cases, you see." She didn't but she nodded anyway. "As I said, John is not here."

"Yeah. I know." She fixed her gaze on Sherlock again and smiled. "He's only one of three reasons I'm here."

Sherlock looked startled for a moment and Harriet laughed quietly when he tried to school his features back to his impassive, imploring gaze.

"Really?" He squinted his eyes and pursed his lips slightly and Harriet let him try to figure her out. She looked around the room for any signs that her brother lived there. It took her a moment but she found them, scattered around with Sherlock's belongings and she smiled. "I admit, I can only think of one reason why you would be here, especially when your brother is gone. Since I do not know you, I can only assume it is an attempt to... get to know me?"

Harriet laughed out loud at that, her smile indulgent and she saw true annoyance appear on Sherlock's face and she laughed more. Her brother was right; he truly was like a child.

"Not entirely right, no." His frown deepened and she heard him take a long breath. "Have a seat, Mr Holmes."

He narrowed his eyes at her as she gestured to the chair at the window and moved herself to perch on the chair that she knew without a doubt was her brother's.

"I know I am not the champion of social convention but shouldn't it be me who asks you to have a seat?"

Harriet's indulgent smile deepened and she took great delight in the annoyance that marred Sherlock's chiselled features.

"And _I _know you're not the champion of social convention so I took the initiative and released you of the burden. Now please, have a seat. There's something I want to say to you."

"To _me_?"

Harriet didn't miss that he refused to sit down, instead opting to loom over her for a few seconds before dropping to the floor and sitting with his legs crossed in front of him in a move that was entirely too graceful for it not to be practiced.

"I don't know what you know about my brother-"

"I'm sure I could say the same of you."

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"But I will tell you this, Mister Holmes. When John left for Afghanistan he took a broken heart with him. Me and John might not be close but I don't want to see him like that again." Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but no words came out and Harriet smiled. "I'm a semi-pro boxer, Mister Holmes. Even so, I know plenty of people who owe me favours, do you understand?" Sherlock was staring at her askance, wordless. "In other words, if you hurt my brother I will hire someone to knock you around and then come in while you're down, chop your balls off and then send them to you in the post. Either that or put them in the microwave with your collection of human eyes."

Sherlock guffawed and Harriet was surprised at how sweet she had managed to keep her tone. When she had given a similar speech to the former Mary Watson she'd sounded a lot more threatening. And clearly _that _hadn't worked because the woman had _still _broken John's heart and left him after only seven months of marriage.

"Are you... threatening me with bodily harm, Ms Watson?" Sherlock enquired, his tone perilously close to curious and Harriet snorted out a laugh.

"Yes. I am."

Sherlock glanced around the room as though looking for the answer there and, coming up empty, he returned his stare to her.

"But _why_?"

She smiled.

"John may come across as a strong man but underneath all of that is a big heart that has only just recently healed. He cares for you, a lot more than I think even you realise." She watched Sherlock assimilate that and just as he moved to speak, she cut him off. "Now, I know John probably didn't mention it but I want to have a baby."

She paused and in the silence, Sherlock frowned and tilted his head. She waited for his apparently genius mind to catch on to what she was saying because she suddenly found that she had lost her nerve. Her palms had begun to sweat but she refused to wipe them off on her jeans, knowing that Sherlock would take note of the movement.

"And...?"

She closed her eyes and took a breath.

"My only option, really, considering my own personal taste in sexual partners, is artificial insemination." She stared at Sherlock, willing him to click on but his face remained quietly curious, if not a little blank. She took another breath. "Would you consider being my donor?"

**v**

"John, thank God you're here!" John looked up at the exclamation from his flatmate, taking in Sherlock's almost panicked face as he loomed over him. "I'm going out."

John turned to follow Sherlock with his eyes as his flatmate rushed down the stairs, almost tripping on the bottom step in his haste before grabbing his coat and shrugging it on while attempting to pull the front door open.

"Sherlock, you're still in your pyjamas!"

Behind him, John heard a sniff and he spun around at the sound and froze in his tracks. Harry was sitting on his chair with two silver tracks on her cheeks from where tears had very recently fallen. He let out a huff of air and rushed to her side.

"Are you all right? Harriet?" She didn't respond, except to drop her face into her upturned palms and John looked askance around the room. What was she _doing _here? "Harriet, what's happened?"

"I asked Sherlock to be my sperm donor."

"I'm sorry, _what_?" Because surely he must have heard wrong.

"I asked Sherlock to be my sperm donor."

John fell back from his haunches and stared at his sister in complete and utter bewilderment.

"_What_?" Harriet lifted her head to glare at him. "I'm sorry but... " He let out a chuckle and tried to back the one that attempted to follow it but within moments he was laughing, the boisterous sound ricocheting around the room. "I'm sorry..."

But Harry was laughing too, quietly and into her hands and shaking her head and John couldn't help but wrap his arms around her.

"What did he say?"

"What do you think?" She asked in a biting tone and John winced slightly, but nodded.

"Why, on God's earth would you ever ask him to be your sperm donor? You hardly know him."

"And I would absolutely not know some random donor." John conceded with a nod and let go of her shoulders when she pushed him back. "And besides, have you seen those cheekbones?"

**vi**

_**Harriet Watson-Clancy **is surplus to requirement _

**vii**

_'Harriet, it's John – again. Pick up your bloody phone. What's happened? Call me back as soon as you get this._

**viii**

"Have you heard from her recently?" John asked and Clara nodded against the plastic cup.

They were in the garden outside John's counsellor's office enjoying the summer sun as it beat down on them at a scorching twenty eight degrees. As he felt his face warm under the heat, John thought of Sherlock, who had refused to leave the house since the minor heat wave started, citing that his skin was just _too pale_ to handle the level of UVA and UVB rays that the summer sun emitted. He patted the bag at his side, smiling at the thought of Sherlock's face when John handed over the bottle of factor fifty sun block.

"Yeah, the other day. To get the divorce papers signed."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Clara took a breath and sipped from her Starbuck's frozen tea. "I don't know what's gotten into her."

"How do you mean?"

Clara sighed and looked down to the grass and John followed her gaze for a moment before turning his head back up to the sky.

"It's not the first time she's left me." John turned to her. "When you were in Afghanistan, she left me three times. None of them for as long as this and none of them ended up with me signing divorce papers."

"I didn't know."

"It's not something I like to broadcast." John nodded in understanding but couldn't find appropriate words. "She wants a baby." John snorted at the memory of Sherlock's stricken face, of Harriet's hysterical laughter and, later, Sherlock's complete and utter incomprehension of the entire situation. John's explanation of 'your cheekbones, apparently' hadn't done much to appease Sherlock's confusion and John had laughed for a long time after it. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied shaking his head. "It's not important."

Clara stared at him for a few moments before looking away.

"She's not normally as volatile as this. I mean, two weeks ago we were talking about how to fix our marriage, how we can make it work and how much we loved each other and then a few days ago I'm hiring a lawyer and signing everything that needs signed and... And she was so cold."

John sighed and considered taking her hand in his but thought better of it. Instead, he turned sideways on the bench and bit his lip.

"Listen; I know Harry. I know how she is. You had her for four good years but this, this flighty broken person is who she is. She might not be better off without you but I can assure you, you are better off without her." John saw tears spring to Clara's eyes and he felt a pinch in his own chest. It hurt him to say it about his sister because, despite the odds, they had gotten closer over the past few months. But he also knew that it was the truth. Harriet was selfish and she was destructive about it. Until she sorted herself out, Clara was better off without her. "She will just keep breaking your heart."

"I've been telling myself that for the past year." She looked down and a blob of saline fell from her lower lid and splashed onto the lid of her plastic cup. "It's just so hard."

"I know. Believe me, I know. But you will be better off."

"Thanks, John." She winced. "I don't really feel better after our chat but I better get going."

John's phone rang in his pocket and he sighed, holding his finger up to indicate to Clara to stay. She smiled and settled back onto her chair.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes. I need you to pick something up for me."

"I thought you preferred texting?"

"I couldn't run the risk of you ignoring my text. Lestrade came by, he needs our help but I need you to go to the pharmacist on Samford Street and pick up-"

There was a loud crack then followed by a dull boom and the sound vibration knocked the phone from John's hand even as he fell sideways off the bench, Clara landing beside him. Around him, he heard a few people screaming and then the sound of more booms, quieter this time and when he looked up, the sky was ablaze with orange fire. It took a few seconds but debris began falling from the sky and John rolled his body over Clara's, ducking his head against ground.

"John? John! Can you hear me? John!"

He scrabbled blindly for his phone and pulled it to his face.

"Sherlock..." His voice came out breathless, quiet and tortured.

"Oh, thank God. Where are you?"

"What...?"

"A plane exploded, I can see it from here. _Where are you_?"

John gulped, tried to take a breath but his mind kept flashing to other booms, to another time, another warm clime. His heart was hammering in his chest and his vision was blurred but he turned his head anyway, and at first all he saw was the building he'd been in, the grass and the edge of the chair he'd been sitting on. He tilted his head, his cheek scraping against the grass and the concrete and then he saw it.

Carnage.

Something hit the back of his neck and he thought to scream in pain but before he could, before the sound could materialise, he blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Strange News from Another Star [2/3]  
Summary: Part Two. Wherein Sherlock has a case that John can't help with, Harry is AWOL and Lestrade witnesses something he never thought he'd see.  
Characters: John, Sherlock, Harry, Clara & Lestrade  
Pairing: Harry/Clara, John-Sherlock  
Rating: T (just in case)  
Notes: Continuation of the story 'Topical', in which John has lunch with his sister and Sherlock is the topic of conversation.  
Warnings: Discusses bi-polar disorder, alcoholism and general gore and blood and death (later), plane crashes and suspected terrorism.

Further notes: This part (and the next) is darker than the first and deals with sensitive issues, as indicated above. If you feel you could be offended by these, please don't read. Further notes to come in part three.

**ix**

John woke to strong hands shaking his shoulders, frantic patting on his face and his name being called over and over. He fought against the darkness that wanted to pull him back under and forced his mind to assess the damage to his person – it was a trick he'd learned during his convalescence, when the morphine nightmares refused to leave him completely even in the light of morning.

His head hurt. _A lot_. Most likely a concussion from some sort of blunt force trauma. His face ached and when he moved his jaw, he felt blood trickle down his neck; a gash then, somewhere in the vicinity of his cheek. His back ached but not in any one specific place; just trauma from falling off the bench then.

"John, can you hear me? Damn it, John, open your eyes." The order was followed by panted breath and John tried to follow the order, wanted to, especially given the tone of voice it was given in but his eyes wouldn't co-operate. Instead, his mind focused on the sounds around him: sirens, shouts, screams of pain, crackling of fire, the rush of water... at that he opened his eyes, squinting against the harsh glare of sunlight that instantly pierced his retinas. "Thank God."

He tilted his head towards the hands that was cradling his neck and followed the sleeve covered arm up to a long slender neck and then to the face of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes who was panting and sweaty and entirely too _pale _to be out in the sun when it was so bloody hot.

"You'll burn," John croaked out, his throat aching too, he noted. Sherlock grinned manically above him but shook his head. "You will. There's..." He frowned and turned his head slightly passed Sherlock to the bag that had fallen under the bench he'd been sitting on. "I bought you sun block. It's under the bench."

Sherlock laughed again and the sound was joined by another quiet laugh and John turned his head at the sound. _Clara_. She had blood gushing down her face from a cut on her forehead but she seemed otherwise unharmed.

"I'm fine," she said to his obvious question and John nodded.

He tried to sit up but Sherlock pushed him back down, his weight falling onto his sore shoulder and he winced as a sharp pain shot through his whole upper body. He turned his head to Clara when he heard her sob and he followed her eyes to the carnage that lay around them. Pieces of wreckage were scattered about the park and ioh God/i there were body parts amongst that wreckage, chopped and carved like rotisserie ham. He didn't gag, although he could see a few people on the periphery of his vision doing just that.

"Don't try and sit up. I think you have a concussion."

John snapped his eyes back to Sherlock and glared at him.

"Of course I have a concussion. I was just hit on the back of the head with a piece of falling aeroplane; if I didn't have a concussion then I'd be dead."

Sherlock's face paled even further, his lips thinning as he sucked them between his lips slightly and John finally truly looked at him. His shirt – the man never wore anything else unless he was in his pyjamas – was stuck to his skin with sweat, his hair matted and slick against his neck and forehead and John couldn't help but think that he looked thoroughly debauched like that.

"I ran from Baker Street."

John sat up, Sherlock and Clara helping him when it turned out his arm was too weak to be of any assistance in the matter. He finally got a good look at the utter chaos around him. Fire engines lined the street, jets of water sailing up into the air to the pyres of fire that had once been buildings and trees. People were crowding around the too few ambulances and people in scrubs tried to push them back and offer them help at a safe distance from the fires and the wreckage. But there _was _no safe distance from the wreckage and John knew that the whole city would be covered in debris. It would be weeks before the recovered everything.

"How do you feel?" Clara asked him as she handed him a bottle of water from her handbag, her voice deceptively calm. He sipped at the lukewarm liquid as he looked around and he knew that he was going into shock. He tried to push it off but he knew it was futile; that it was inevitable but he thought he would be used to scenes like this by now.

_But this isn't a battle zone_, his mind supplied and he squeezed his eyes shut against it and the images the thought conjured up.

"John?" Sherlock queried as his hand moved up from the base of John's spine to his shoulder and it was only then that John realised Sherlock was even holding onto him. "Do you need to go to a hospital?"

He shook his head.

"No. The hospitals will be overflowing with people." He turned to Clara and pointed to her face. "I can clean that up back at the..." he trailed off as he stared passed her again, to the green scrubs being surrounded by crying victims. Instantly, he tried to push himself off the ground because _what was he doing_ just sitting there while people needed help? He was a idoctor/i for God's sake. "I should-"

"No, you should not!" Sherlock protested and held John's wrist to keep him bodily on the ground. "You're in shock. You're hands haven't stopped shaking since you woke up and quite frankly, you look absolutely terrible – no one would want to be treated by someone who has blood and ash dripping from their face." John moved to argue but Sherlock quieted him with a stare. "Home. And if you're still needed you can come back once you've calmed down."

"Come on, John. There's doctors and nurses here," Clara intoned and John couldn't tear his eyes away from the scene around him – the scenes that Clara was pointedly ignoring, the scenes that Sherlock was taking perfectly in stride. He envied them. He envied them so much right then.

"I think you will have to help me carry him," he heard Sherlock say and he snatched his arm back from Sherlock's grip, startling the other man.

"I don't need carried!"

Sherlock raised his eyebrow, then shook his head and swiped his fingers through his hair to push it back from his face.

"It's a long walk back to Baker Street – we'll never get a cab and traffic will be horrendous anyway what with the debris scatter-" John was only slightly amused by the fact that Sherlock was rambling inanely and he quickly cut the detective off.

"I'll be fine. Come on."

It took them almost an hour to reach Baker Street – a journey that ordinarily would have taken them twenty minutes. But Watson almost collapsed at every corner; crowds of people had gathered on the streets and they had to pick their way clumsily through; nurses kept trying to offer him medical assistance (assistance that Sherlock vehemently waved off for both Clara and John) and for them having to pick their way over sheets of metal, burst luggage and pieces of flesh that John really didn't want to think about.

At Baker Street, Mrs Hudson was crying; that was really all that John was aware of as Sherlock manoeuvred them up the stairs to their sitting room. He was vaguely aware of Sherlock's deep rumbling tone, his curving words as he ordered Mrs Hudson to find John's medical kit, instructed Clara to sit down, to just _sit down_ anywhere, it didn't matter. Then there was stinging and the faint smell of alcohol permeating his aural senses, blackness, and Sherlock's voice and more blackness and Sherlock's touch, coaxing him up, coaxing him down, and backwards and _just lie there, you'll be fine_.

**x**

When he finally woke from the tormented, fitful sleep of the post-traumatic-stressed-out, a day and a half had passed and most of the victims who were in need of help at the scenes were either fine, or dead and his services, while appreciated, were not necessary. He tried not to let the guilt gnaw at him – tried to think of what his therapist would tell him but none of it worked and the guilt grew and multiplied until he felt like he did when he first woke up after being shot.

He tried to tell himself it did no one any good – least of himself. It didn't help.

"Stop moping."

He turned away from the window and stared blankly at his flatmate for a moment before he tutted and glared at him.

"I'm not moping."

"Right," Sherlock puffed out but smiled over to John. "Good. Lestrade needs our help."

John closed his eyes and dropped his head onto the window, feeling the coolness seep into his skin. Since the incident, the temperature had plummeted to a cool sixteen degrees and John couldn't help but think of the supernatural. He didn't voice those thoughts to Sherlock because God knows _that _would be a bad idea.

What else would be a bad idea, he thought, would be him attempting any sort of case at that moment. His mind still felt fragmented, his body still ached (aches that, according to Sherlock, were entirely psychosomatic but what the great detective _didn't _know about was the bruises that littered pretty much all of John's body) and, if he was being honest with himself, he just wasn't in the mood.

"Sherlock-"

"It's about the explosion."

He definitely wasn't interested.

"No."

There was a pause during which John turned slightly and caught the profile of Sherlock; the other man looked confused for a moment and looked about ready to voice said confusion before his vision cleared and he snapped his mouth closed. John smiled to his reflection, small and tight and shook his head. _Sociopath, indee_d.

**xi**

_Harriet, it's John. Are you all right? I was talking to Clara and neither of us have heard from you and... with the explosion and... please, just call me back._

**xii**

"This isn't working," Sherlock exclaimed a few days later and threw his pen forcefully onto the table. He banged his fists against the solid wood three times before he pushed himself to his feet and swiped the papers off the surface. John would never admit it but he enjoyed the sound of the thick bundles flittering against one another before settling onto the floor.

John took a breath, marked his place in the book that he wasn't so much as _reading _as he was _looking at the pag_e and looked up to Sherlock's lanky, pacing frame.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't think!" He growled in frustration and pinched the bridge of his nose forcefully and John frowned slightly at the sight of Sherlock's knuckles whitening under the pressure. "I need to think out loud. You don't have to listen but do you mind if I...?"

"This is about the explosion?" John queried, feeling the pang in his chest, the guilt in his stomach tightening. Sherlock nodded. John looked down to the book in his hands before setting it aside. "Go."

Sherlock stared at him for a long moment before he nodded once and spun away from John to pace.

"There's a missing person from the flight-"

John squirmed. "Not unusual in an aeroplane crash."

Sherlock turned on him then, his eyes ablaze with the thrill of the chase and John knew he'd made a mistake butting in.

"Yes, but this is different. From the human remains they've found, they've been able to match it to DNA of each person on the flight bar one." John nodded to show that he was following. "This is where it gets interesting, though. They've recovered the body of one of the airport staff amongst the wreckage but one of the passengers is still missing." John nodded again, swallowing the lump in his throat. Sherlock's voice was detached, clinical and it sent a chill through John to hear it at that moment, when memories (not just from the crash) were so strong and prevalent in his mind. "There is footage of Dyer – the man who was supposed to be on the plane but whose body hasn't been recovered – handing over his boarding pass at the gate. Ninety minutes later, his body's not on the plane that exploded in the sky but another person's is."

"Who was the airport worker?" John asked, forcing the words out past the lump in his throat. Sherlock turned to him, a gleam in his eye that quickly disappeared.

"He drives the buses between terminals."

John pursed his lips.

"And does he check out?" Sherlock nodded. "What caused the explosion on the plane?"

Sherlock frowned at him then.

"Haven't you been reading the papers?"

John thought of the images on the front pages; the fires, the wreckage. Thought of the heart breaking stories from family members and crew and friends – he couldn't handle that.

"No."

Sherlock looked at him with that gleam again for a long moment and, for the first time in a long time, John looked away from the heavy stare of his friend. He heard Sherlock take a breath before letting it out slowly and when he looked back up, Sherlock was standing in front of the window, his arm braced high against the wall there and John noted again how slim Sherlock really was. It was a slenderness that belied his strength and agility.

"Eyewitness accounts say they saw flames coming from one of the engines and then seconds later, the whole thing exploded. Air Traffic Control confirm that there was a fire in engine one and that the pilots were attempting to shut down fuel supply to it. They don't know what created the final explosion." He paused and spun back around the face John, but his eyes were focussed over his head somewhere. "The wreckage is spread over roughly two hundred square miles – rather expansive, given how low the aircraft was at the time." John closed his eyes; this was why he hadn't wanted to be part of the investigation – details like that were almost too much for him to keep a hold of his fragile integrity. There was a long, pregnant pause and then Sherlock cleared his throat. "Forgive me."

John shook his head.

"It's fine." Sherlock frowned and didn't say anything. "So they don't think this was a terrorist attack?"

"No." He paused. "I almost wish it was." John started at that but Sherlock waved him off. "But that would be dull." John rolled his eyes

"I thought you liked hard cases?"

Sherlock whirled on him again, stalking over to John's chair and bracing his arms on either side of it.

"I do. But this is impossible." He sighed and stepped back. "Where did he go? Is he the one who put the bus driver onto the plane, and if so, how did he manage it without anyone seeing him?"

John considered it but his mind was too foggy, too patchy and he shook his head.

"Do you think he killed the bus driver and..."

"Possibly. But how did he get him onto the plane? Surely cabin crew would notice, and ground staff..." John nodded. "And where did he go afterwards? Or did he actually make it onto the plane and we've just been unfortunate enough not to discover part of his body?" Sherlock growled in frustration again and buried his fingers in his hair. "No one saw anything unusual, or so Lestrade tells me but how accurate those statements are..." he shook his head in frustration. "I need data." He growled again and tugged at the ends of his hair. "I need a nicotine patch."

"Only one?" John enquired and Sherlock smirked over at him from the 'medicine' drawer. He held out his arm, where there were already two patches and John smiled. "Ah."

"I'll think on it some more." He looked about the room for a few moments, spinning three-sixty on his heel. "Where did I put the dry-board marker?"

John opened his book and motioned towards the shelf next to the window.

"Over there, somewhere. Try the top shelf."

"Ah." There was silence for a few moments and John smiled into it. "Thank you." His smile grew.

**xi**

_Hi John, it's Clara. How are you? I got my stitches out today – the doctor was quite impressed by your Sherlock's needle-work, told me to pass on his compliments. [pause] I was thinking... Last time I spoke to Harry, she mentioned going on holiday. She mentioned New York... I don't even want to think it but... do you think? I can't... Oh God, if she was and we..._

**xii**

"I can't get a hold of Harry."

Sherlock set down his pen and spun in his chair to face his companion.

"Yes, you've told me that already."

"Clara called me. She thinks that... I don't know. She thinks that Harry might- Did you see the passenger list for that flight?"

"Yes." He narrowed his eyes. "Your sister's name wasn't on it."

"Okay." Sherlock watched the play of emotions on John's face and wondered how it was possible for a man to fluctuate so violently between emotions – it had always amazed him. "That's... Good, I suppose. Except... except that it's not."

Sherlock frowned.

"Why is it not good?"

John stopped fidgeting then, dropped his hands to his sides and pierced Sherlock with a stare that held too much emotion, too much pain, too much blue... Just _too much_. It took Sherlock's breath away.

"I have no idea where she is."

**xiii**

_Harriet, please..._

**xiv**

When John arrived at Baker Street, he was surprised to see Lestrade lounging in one of the armchairs in front of the dormant fireplace. He nodded to the Detective Inspector and turned when Sherlock entered from the kitchen.

"Ah, John, you're back." John nodded. "Lestrade was just about to tell us about our case." John made to protest but Sherlock held out a hand to stop him from leaving. "Not that one."

John frowned.

"We don't have another case, Sherlock."

"We did, before the crash."

John turned to Lestrade, who did not look happy but he nodded. John sighed and shrugged out of his cardigan, shifting slightly to accommodate Sherlock's sudden appearance at his side. He draped his cardigan over the back of the armchair before he slumped into it, feeling the welcome comfort encase him.

"Before the crash I called Sherlock into look at a body that was found in Gunnersbury Park."

Sherlock shifted slightly and his shadow fell across John's legs and John turned slightly to see the younger man leaning haphazardly against the window frame.

"You have since changed your mind?"

Lestrade looked away then but not before John caught the slightest hint of chagrin on the detective's face.

"It's Nathan Dyer."

John heard Sherlock move, felt him at the back of his chair moments later and even John found that he had leant further forward in his chair at Lestrade's declaration.

"_What do you mea_n it's Nathan Dyer?" Sherlock asked, his voice suspiciously low and John daren't turn in his chair to look at him.

"Who's Nathan Dyer?" John asked, interrupting the staring contest between the two men on either side of him and he turned to look at Sherlock.

"Nathan Dyer," Sherlock said eventually, flicking his eyes down to John's, "is our missing man from the flight."

John gaped and turned back to Lestrade who was staring at the both of them still, his greying hair standing on end from where he'd repeatedly run his fingers through it. John still gaped and Lestrade huffed slightly and looked up to Sherlock, who remained frozen and silent at John's back.

"How did he end up in Gunnersbury Park?" John asked eventually, his tone much more incredulous than he would like it to be and he winced when he heard Sherlock scoff behind him.

"That's what I was hoping you would help me figure out," Lestrade replied, his tone imploring.

"Why did it take so long for this to come to light?" Sherlock asked but when Lestrade made to answer Sherlock cut him off. "Never mind. The flight."

Lestrade nodded.

"Everyone's been out collecting wreckage and everything else got pushed back; the morgue's have been running on skeleton crews and it's taken them this long to get to him and get all the tests run. When it turned out he was our missing man, they handed it straight over to us and I came straight to you. We need-"

"Yes, you need me." He huffed in that arrogant way that John had become accustomed to before he turned back to Lestrade. "How was he killed?"

"Bullet to the head – execution style." John turned to Sherlock then, who stared at the wall with his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed, his steepled fingers in place in front of his lips. It was a pose well known to John. "The body's at the Yard." Lestrade paused again, eyes flicking to John for a moment before he retrained his gaze on Sherlock. "Will you come?"

Sherlock turned then, and nodded.

"Yes." Lestrade stood and moved towards the door. "I'll be right behind you."

Sherlock didn't move for a long moment but when he did, it was not towards the door. Instead, he moved towards John's seated figure and towered over him for a moment in silence before he stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

"I take it you won't be joining me?" He queried and John almost felt bad for shaking his head. "I thought not." He pivoted on his heel and John stood stiffly, his body still aching slightly from the motion. At the door, Sherlock paused and turned back slightly but he would not meet John's eye. "I do hope this won't be a permanent sabbatical."

Before John could reply, Sherlock was gone.

He smiled to the empty doorway instead.

**xv**

At the morgue, Sherlock took one look at the body before he sighed dejectedly and Lestrade turned to him, a frown on his face.

"What?"

"So dull." Lestrade's eyebrow rose of its own accord and Sherlock rolled his eyes. "See this tattoo?" He said and Lestrade followed the long finger as it pointed at an intricately drawn figure on the man's arm – half dragon, half man – and shrugged. "It's the symbol for the organised crime syndicate that I warned you about more than two years ago." Lestrade closed his eyes and sighed, resigned. "He was high up, going by the added intricacies of his tattoo-" Lestrade opened his eyes and watched as Sherlock pointed out the scaly wings, the outline of purple fire coming from the dragon's mouth "- so one can only assume that he was either trying to leave, or trying to con those higher up. I'd go for the latter, considering he didn't change his name."

Lestrade sighed.

"How did they get him between the gate and the plane?"

"I imagine the bus driver was an informant, as possibly many of the baggage handlers who no doubt helped load the deceased driver onto the plane. I'm sure if you recover the rest of his body, you will find a tattoo similar to this."

"And the explosion?"

Sherlock sighed.

"Coincidental." Lestrade didn't buy it. "The plane was old, accidents happen." Sherlock sighed again and flicked the body with his gloved hand. "It would appear that what appeared to be linked deaths and _interest _turns out to be two individual events that just happen to coincide." He rolled his eyes. "Sometimes Occam was right."

Lestrade rolled his eyes.

"I'm going to need proof, Sherlock."

"Of course." He moved away from the body just as Molly rolled in another trolley with a black bag on it. "I will provide proof of the gang; the recovery team will provide the rest in a few months." He nodded towards the trolley. "What's this?"

Molly looked up, startled, and Lestrade snorted quietly when the young woman flushed to the roots of her hair at the sight of Sherlock.

"Assumed suicide." Lestrade watched as Sherlock raised an eyebrow and Molly flushed more. "The other morgues are dealing with the explosion – I, I..."

"I see," Sherlock intoned and stepped up to the body, his hands already on the zip when he asked "Do you mind if I take a look?"

Molly looked to Lestrade who merely shrugged and shook his head – who knew what went on inside the genius's mind. Lestrade gave him a few moments before he stepped around to the other side of the body, looking down at the young woman's face quickly before glancing away again – he'd never quite gotten used to the sight of faces of hanged bodies.

"Well?" He queried and looked up to Sherlock's face and he started slightly. Sherlock's face was pale – paler than usual, at least – and his lips were parted slightly, his eyes wide and when Lestrade looked down he saw that Sherlock's hands were hovering, frozen in mid-air above the body. "Sherlock, are you all right?"

Sherlock jerked then, taking a massive step back from the body and looked up to Lestrade then, his eyes reflecting perplexity and something... something he wasn't used to seeing in Sherlock Holmes' eyes – something akin to utter empathetic devastation.

"I have to go."

He was gone then, in an instant and Lestrade was left in the morgue with Molly. He turned to her then but she was staring at the still swinging door with her eyes wide, her mouth slightly agape.

He took after Sherlock.

**xvi**

_**I'm coming home. Don't go out.**_

_**SH**_


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Strange News from Another Star [3/3]  
Summary: Part Three. Wherein Sherlock isn't really a sociopath, John reaches out and a trip to Edinburgh occurs.  
Characters: John, Sherlock, Harry, Clara, Lestrade & OCs  
Pairing: Harry/Clara, John-Sherlock  
Rating: T (just in case)  
Notes: Continuation of the story 'Topical', in which John has lunch with his sister and Sherlock is the topic of conversation.  
Warnings: Discusses bi-polar disorder, alcoholism and general gore and blood and death (later), plane crashes and suspected terrorism. bMentions suicide/b.

**xvii**

And when John scrabbled for something – anything – to ground him, Sherlock didn't say anything when John's hand wrapped around his wrist.

**xviii**

John was deep in his armchair watching _Cash in the Celebrity Attic_ with Mrs Hudson when Sherlock's unusually slow tread on the stairs had him turning his head towards the door to watch the detective emerge through the doorway.

"Sherlock, dear, be a love and-" Mrs Hudson began but when she turned and saw the image Sherlock portrayed she stopped, glanced towards John before standing and manoeuvring around Sherlock to get out of the door.

"Sherlock," John began, taking in the tousled hair, the paler than usual skin, the way Sherlock stared at him with that deep, heavy interest with confusion. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock stepped into the room, his gaze flicking to the floor for an instant before he moved to the window and looked down to the street below. Confused, John stood and followed him – standing closer to Sherlock's back than was perhaps strictly necessary – and peered around his shoulder. Outside Baker Street was the not unusual sight of a police patrol car and John raised his eyebrow slightly. He had only heard one car draw up outside and with Sherlock's appearance he had assumed it was a cab but the evidence presented to him led to the assumption that Sherlock had in fact been transported to Baker Street in the back of a police car.

"Your sister," Sherlock said suddenly, his voice loud but wavering and John stepped back as Sherlock turned, his gaze skittering across John's face before settling on his collar. John felt a tangle in his stomach, deep and twisted and he knew, he iknew/i what Sherlock was about to say and a chilling coldness settled in his chest. "She killed herself."

John let out a long, low breath and pulled his lips between his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. No. _No_. Because despite knowing what Sherlock was going to say, hearing it was anything but easy.

"H..." He began but the words trailed off along with his voice, along with the ability to speak and think and reason and... and...

"Lestrade..." Sherlock began but stopped, cleared his throat and John opened his eyes at his friend's uncharacteristic hesitation. In the background, Aled Jones and Jennie Bond cooed over a large, ornate trumpet. "Lestrade is waiting outside to take you to the morgue, to identify the body," he continued, his voice stronger and John looked up to his face but Sherlock was stoic, staring at something over John's head and he hated the distance, both physical and emotional, that Sherlock was able to create. "I already identified her but you are her next of kin-"

"Sherlock," John interrupted but Sherlock continued.

"Sergeant Donovan has gone to inform Clara."

"Sherlock-"

"I offered to inform you-"

"_Look _at me, damn it!" John shouted, his hands reaching out to grasp onto Sherlock's upper arms. Sherlock, startled, looked first to the hands gripping him and then to John's face and what John saw there only served to further shatter any composure he had left. His knees buckled, his vision blurred and a sound – primal, animalistic – tore from his throat as strong arms gripped him from his armpits, as his body was led to the floor, as his fists contacted with thin, threadbare carpet. "I knew... I _knew_... and I..."

Sherlock didn't say anything, didn't try to offer any comfort and John was both glad and unsurprised. Pain ripped through him, throbbing at his shoulder and his leg and he knew than when he did eventually try to stand, his leg probably wouldn't hold him. Something in his chest burned, painful and searing hot and it licked at his throat forcing him to gasp for air that seemed far too fleeting in the suddenly too small living room. He pushed away from Sherlock's loose grip, pushed himself against the table leg and let his chest spasm as he fought for air, pulling at the neck of his Aran knit jumper.

He felt like he was suffocating.

**xix**

"Will you come with me?"

Sherlock formed the word 'why' in his throat but John was already out of the room shrugging into his jacket. He followed silently behind.

**xx**

"_John_."

John almost broke down again at the sound of Clara's voice, the sheer raw agony grating across his overly sensitive nerves. He didn't reply with words, didn't reach out to offer comfort to his sister-in-law, even though he knew she was practically begging for human contact. He watched as her eyes flicked over his shoulder, registered the slightest hint of surprise there and then John felt Sherlock at his back – close enough for heat to pass between them but far enough that they didn't touch.

"All right," Lestrade said quietly, glancing between the trio and John flicked his eyes to the DI for an instant before he concentrated on the grey swinging doors that led to the room he knew his sister's body was. "Shall we?" Lestrade had tried to offer platitudes and condolences in the car on the drive to the hospital but Sherlock had silently shaken his head and Lestrade had nodded, turned back to the road and driven in silence. He didn't try to re-offer the condolences and John was glad.

John stepped forward, falling into step with the much slower, more lethargic Clara. Lestrade pushed the door open and stepped in, taking his place at the door as John paused just outside of it. He turned to Sherlock who was still standing a few feet away.

"Are you coming?"

Sherlock paused again, the question forming but he clamped it down and nodded.

"I'll be right behind you."

John stepped through the door and it swung shut behind him, the rubber edges flapping against one another. He stood beside the gurney, stared down at the shrouded figure. He'd seen dead bodies before – far, far too many – and as he stared at the one in front of him, his mind instantly began categorising relative height, size and-he switched that off. He was not on a case. He was not Sherlock Holmes.

He looked up then at the thought of his friend but he wasn't in the room and John crushed down the instant stab of disappointment.

He looked down again, to Lestrade's hand as he peeled back the sheet, to the face that appeared beneath it and he closed his eyes. Clara gasped, sobbed and muttered,

"Harry, oh God..."

Lestrade took a breath and his voice was directed at John.

"Is this Harriet Watson?"

John nodded and Clara gasped out a strangled 'yes' before she fled the room, the doors banging against the wall in her haste to leave. John knew how she felt; he wanted to leave but his feet seemed to have sprung roots and fastened him to the spot and his eyes were rebelling against being held shut.

"I'll give you a few minutes," Lestrade said and John nodded, swallowed and tried to keep his breathing even.

When the doors flapped against one another again at Lestrade's departure John slowly opened his eyes and stared down at the body below him. Her face was slightly swollen, her blond hair damp and swept away from her forehead. He shifted the sheet; dark, purple bruises ringed her neck.

He sucked in a breath and re-covered her neck with the sheet.

"How long ago?" He asked and looked across the table to Sherlock, whose presence he'd felt the instant Lestrade had left the room.

"Five days ago." Sherlock moved, coming around to John's side and covered her face, too. John stared at the sheet instead. "The flat's cleaner found her this morning."

"How...?" Sherlock didn't say anything and John closed his eyes and felt the twisting snake coil tighter in his gut, the fire in his chest reignited. "Tell me, Sherlock."

There was a long pause, during which John turned his head slightly to Sherlock.

"She used a scarf tied to the clothes in her cupboard. There was an empty bottle of anti-depressants and bottle of gin on the bedside table."

_All very dramatically morbid_, he thought but shook the thought away and turned them instead to Sherlock's words. There was a lot he hadn't said, a lot that John could infer if he chose – and _God _did he infer. He could imagine Harry, almost totally out of it as she fumbled with a scarf, as she let herself fall forward. It would have been long. And painful.

"She could have stopped." He saw Sherlock nod and he bit back on the sound that wanted to escape his throat. "She didn't want to."

"No."

John felt his leg begin to throb, felt his hand tremble but instead of clutching it into a fist, he reached out, scrabbling for something – anything – to hold onto. His hand closed around something solid and warm - _Sherlock's wrist_ - and he just held on.

**xxi**

"I'm not... entirely surprised," Clara said as she huddled around the cup of tea Mrs Hudson had so graciously made them on their return to Baker Street. "She'd talked about it before – you know, when she was at her worst. But... but it was only ever in that abstract sense that... that Harry talked about anything." There was a heavy silence during which John could think of nothing to say. "Or, at least, I thought it was abstract."

She dropped her head forward, propping it up with a hand to her forehead and John looked around the room for tissues. There were none, of course, so he didn't move. The whole house was quiet; Sherlock had made himself scarce almost as soon as they'd stepped out of the morgue, even the quiet murmur of Mrs Hudson's television was gone. The gas boiler in the kitchen flickered to life and the heating pipes groaned beneath the floorboards, filling the silence for a long while.

"Your parents..." John closed his eyes. "Should we..."

John really, really did not want to call his mother. Last time they had spoken, she had been less than pleased that he was going off to Afghanistan when he should be staying at home trying to fix his marriage. He'd never really gotten on with his dad.

"Yeah." He swallowed. "I'll phone them now."

**xxii**

_**Need the bank card, Sherlock**_

_**John**_

**xxiii**

They were at King's Cross Station at entirely too early in the morning the day before Harry's funeral. His parents wanted Harriet buried at home and since the divorce had been finalised before Harriet had killed herself, neither Clara nor John could convince them otherwise.

When he'd phoned them, his mum had cried so much that his aunt had had to take the phone off of her to find out what had happened. His dad had phoned him (the first time such an occurrence had happened in nigh on five years) back later that night and insisted that his little girl wouldn't do that, and then insisted that it was a product of her sexuality. He'd never really understood that Harry's bi-polar was a real illness and not just one of those things made up as an excuse for her dysfunction. _Dysfunction_. John snorted at the memory of the word, spat at his sister years before when she'd announced that she was gay.

John had barely seen Sherlock since the day at the morgue but it was not entirely surprising. He'd been busy with sorting out the legalities with Clara and helping his parents organise the transport of Harry's body back up to Edinburgh and Sherlock, he assumed, was tying up the last case. Sherlock was making up for the absence with his incessant complaining.

"I really don't see why we couldn't have flown."

John and Clara shared a look before John rolled his eyes tiredly and turned back to Sherlock.

"And I told you that Clara and I aren't particularly enthralled with the idea of flying at the moment."

Sherlock huffed and tucked his chin down.

"Statistically speaking, there's more of a chance that the train will derail than a plane exploding-"

"_Thank you,_ Sherlock. I did offer to drive."

Sherlock huffed again.

"Oh, _please_."

When they were allowed on the train, Sherlock took the seat opposite John, flouncing into it before pulling his legs up and resting his head against the window with his eyes shut. John wondered if he would actually sleep. Clara took the single chair across the aisle from John's and smiled sadly at him before pulling a small travel pillow from her hand bag and laying her head awkwardly on the table. Neither of them had slept properly since they found out about... He couldn't remember when he'd last strung two hours of consecutive sleep together. He sighed, glared at Sherlock and then hefted his and Sherlock's bags into the overhead area and then Clara's before copying Clara's position and dozing off.

A couple of hours later, somewhere in the midlands, John looked up from his iPod when Sherlock jerked awake. He watched as Sherlock blinked a few times out of the window before turning to John.

"York?" John didn't ask how he knew, only nodded and pulled the earphones from his ears. "The midlands are dull."

John huffed out a laugh as he wound the wire around the iPod.

"You think breathing is dull, Sherlock, so I'm not entirely surprised you think so."

Sherlock hummed in the back of his throat and then glanced across to the still sleeping Clara. The first class carriage they were in had remained relatively empty so far and John could only imagine it was because of the god-awful hour the train had passed through the first of the cities. There was a long moment of silence and John watched Sherlock watching him, the sun casting half of Sherlock's face into shadow, the high cheekbones on his right side disappearing against the white-hot glare.

"What?" John asked quietly after four minutes of sustained staring.

"Are you... all right?" Sherlock asked, shifting his shoulders slightly and John bit back the little smile that threatened at the sight of Sherlock's discomfort. He could only imagine the thought process that had led to the question – because John knew Sherlock didn't ido/i emotion, and that somehow, somewhere, Sherlock's reasoning and logic had inspired him to ask the question.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Sherlock frowned and John joined him, half glaring at his companion. "What?"

Sherlock sighed loudly, though John couldn't decipher if it was his usual disdain or if there was... something else underneath it. He decided to concentrate on that, rather than the swirl that started in his stomach at Sherlock's question.

"You say that a lot."

"What?"

"That you're fine."

John frowned.

"Because I am."

Sherlock pursed his lips and turned back to the window.

"Right."

Clara had woken up just past the border when they'd gotten their complementary tea and snacks, and they were all staring out of the windows in silence when Sherlock turned to John and stared at him again.

"What now?"

"You're not Scottish."

John frowned.

"No, I'm not." He looked over to Clara, whose red, puffy eyes were the only indication that she'd been doing something other than peeing in the bathroom. He smiled over to her but it felt tight and false and the one she returned wasn't much better.

"When did your parents move to Edinburgh? There's no trace of an Edinburgh accent in your voice, nor in your sister's."

John pulled his lips in between his teeth at the mention of Harry and stared pointedly at Sherlock, who, while doing _better _with emotions and everything accompanying them, didn't understand the glare.

"They moved when I turned nineteen, when I got a flat in London to go to medical school." Sherlock made an 'ah' face and John looked out the window, fighting with the lump in his throat. "Harry went with them to start with but she only lasted four months. She visited me in London and never went back."

He could see Sherlock glance towards him, thought he saw something akin to empathy on the other man's face but it was gone before he could be sure and John closed his eyes against the passing hills and traffic.

**xxiv**

"Oh great, a houseful of queers."

John closed his eyes and shook his head, pushing passed his dad – he wasn't entirely certain the note of affected amusement in the statement was completely honest.

"Mum," John said as he stepped up to the chair his mother was sitting on, kneeling down beside her to look at her tear streaked face.

"Oh, John." She pushed away from the chair and threw her arms around John's neck and he almost fell backwards at the force of it. "It's so good to see you," she sniffed into his neck and John nodded, gripping her tighter to him for a moment before moving for extraction. She let him go and he pushed himself to his feet, shifting awkwardly from side to side as his mum wiped at her eyes with a scrunched up hankie. "Oh!" John turned at the sound of Sherlock and Clara finally making it to the living room and situated himself beside his mother's chair. "You didn't tell me you were bringing a guest," she half hissed at him, though John could hear something light behind it. "Clara, dear, come here."

John moved away as Clara stepped into his mum's open arms and felt Sherlock settle beside him. He turned to look at his friend, who was busy scanning the room, his eyes calculating and perceptive. John watched as his eyes paused for a moment and John followed his gaze, felt his cheeks heat slightly at the sight of his graduation photo. He's told them to take it down, years ago. Beside it (on John's 'side' of the mantelpiece) was his wedding photo, the one of just him in his tux and he heard Sherlock let out a small puff of air as his eyes settled on it.

"Who's your friend, John?"

"Sherlock Holmes," Sherlock said as he stepped forward with an extended hand. His mother grasped his hand lightly and there was a long pause where Sherlock stared at her and John wondered what he came up with. "My condolences."

"Sherlock, this is my mum, Grace Watson."

Sherlock smiled and pulled his hand back, stuffing it awkwardly into his trouser pocket and John couldn't help the small smile at his friend's awkwardness. Grace turned to John then, a frown on her face.

"You should have told me you were bringing your friend, John. Your auntie Sandra has taken up the other spare room." She glanced between the two of them. "Unless-"

"It's all right, mum, we're staying at a hotel."

"You are?"

John closed his eyes and sighed at Sherlock's words. He knew he shouldn't have left him in charge of booking hotel rooms.

"Yes, Sherlock, I am. I told you to book rooms."

Sherlock paused for a moment and when John did eventually look at him, he looked genuinely confused.

"I had assumed you would stay here."

"And leave you in a hotel on your own? No."

Sherlock looked offended.

"What is that supposed to mean? I can stay in a hotel room by myself perfectly fine-"

"Remember what happened last time you went to France?" Sherlock grumbled something under his breath and John raised an eyebrow. "Exactly."

When he turned back to his mother to apologise, she and Clara were staring at him in slight astonishment but by now he was used to such stares and simply shrugged.

"Clara, you can stay here if you want and I'll take your hotel room, if you want."

Clara started, her eyes widening and she had already started shaking her head before John had finished his sentence.

"No. I... I can't. I... No."

Grace turned to the woman then and laid a calming hand on her arm.

"It's all right, dear. I understand."

"Sherlock," John said and Sherlock hummed in response. "Call up and book another room, would you?"

"Pass me my phone."

John narrowed his eyes.

"Here, use mine." Sherlock smiled the fake smile that John detested before he twirled out of the room with John's mobile in his hand.

"He's..." His mother began but trailed off and John sighed.

"Yes, I know."

Grace smiled with half of her mouth then but it didn't quite reach her mouth.

"I was going to say 'handsome'; I'm glad you agree John." He didn't bother to reply, even when Clara snickered. "Now, have a seat and tell me... tell me everything."

John closed his eyes and took a breath as he slid into the overstuffed armchair in front of the faux fire. He didn't even know where to begin. The room was warm considering the sun was shining in the rooms at the back of the house, and appropriately dull for a house in mourning. He opened his eyes when someone walked through the door and he saw his dad carrying a tray with tea and biscuits on it. He picked at a loose thread on the arm of the chair, the faded pink strand fraying beneath his fingertips and he looked up when his dad passed him a cup.

"How does your friend take his tea?"

"Black, no sugar."

David nodded and set a separate cup at the side of the tray. Once he was done, he settled in beside Grace and took her hand between his before staring intently at John. He wondered why he was the one who had to tell the story.

"What do you want to know?"

"How could she..." his mother broke down just as Sherlock came back in. John turned to him, indicated the tea but Sherlock shook his head and slipped back out of the door. "How could she _do _this to us?"

**xxv**

"Shouldn't you... I don't know, be with your family?"

John lowered his arm to the bed he was using as a couch and turned to Sherlock, who was slouched in the less-than-comfortable-looking chair at the desk.

"Probably. But you saw them – I can't..." He thought back to the house as it was when they'd left, with people pouring in and out – some of Harry's friends who'd travelled up from London to pay their respects, the family and the extended family – and he remembered the warmth and the noise and the crying. "No." Sherlock didn't say anything but he nodded, his lips tight as though in thought and John turned back to the TV, staring blankly at the images flashing before him. The minutes stretched on, the shadows in the room getting longer as the late evening sun lowered into the horizon. John watched the shadows for long, long minutes silence before he sighed and shook his head. "Do you think I should have known?"

Sherlock started slightly, turning his eyes to John for just a moment before he reclaimed his thoughtful pose in front of the window.

"Hm? Known what?"

John picked at the bed cover with his nail, watching as his hand trembled slightly. He bit back the frustration.

"About Harriet. About... what she was going to do." Sherlock sat straighter in his chair, shifting his focus from the world outside of his Holiday Inn Express room to John and John sighed under the weight of it. "I mean... suicidal people show signs of what they're thinking right? Should I have seen something? Should I have _inferred _more from things she did, things she said? I mean... she told me she loved me. Harriet doesn't tell people she loves them, especially not out of the blue. Especially not out on the street when she's perfectly sober. That's one of the signs, isn't it? Spontaneous expression of love."

"Yes. It is. There are other signs, too. Attempts to say goodbye, tying up loose ends, letting the people around you know that you care for them." John closed his eyes, the guilt clawing at his chest like a rabid cat, desperate to get out and infect the world. "All of which Harriet did – she finalised her divorce, for example."

"She told Clara she loved her."

Sherlock nodded slightly, steepling his fingers in front of his lips.

"But she was making contrary decisions. She chose to attempt to stop drinking, she wanted to come off her anti-depressants."

John nodded, half a smile tugging at his lips.

"She asked you to be her sperm donor."

"Yes. Thank you for reminding me of that." Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Though I still don't understand _why_."

John half smiled again, swallowing the lump that was climbing up his throat.

"I'm just glad you said no – the _world _is glad you said no," he said with half a laugh, that sounded empty and hollow even in his own head.

"How so?" Sherlock queried and John looked up, startled at the sound of genuine curiosity in his tone.

John snorted, his eyelashes dampening from ridiculous tears at the memory of Harry laughing into her hands after asking Sherlock to father her baby.

"The child of a claimed sociopath and someone suffering from bi-polar?" He scoffed. "Kid wouldn't stand a chance." John swiped at the tears on his face. "Should I have seen something?" He queried softly, and he knew his voice sounded broken even to his own ears.

There's a long pause, and then Sherlock's voice,

"I didn't."

John's comforted by that.

**xxvi**

_**Blog Updat**e: The funeral was hellish. I want to thank everyone for your kind words and for your thoughts. My family are coping with it as well as can be expected. Home tomorrow, I think. Sherlock's getting a bit stir-crazy._

**xxvii**

John had been hiding in Sherlock's room again for nearly an hour – though who he was hiding from, he wasn't sure. Everyone who he had been trying to avoid were back at his parent's house for the 'small gathering'. He'd taken one look at the room before Sherlock had steered them towards a lingering taxi.

The weather had been appropriately dismal – though they were in Scotland, it should have been expected, summer or no – and everyone had worn black. Even Sherlock, though that, too, was unsurprising but the detective had managed to dig a black shirt out of somewhere (John had never seen it before and he was pretty sure he would remember if he had) and he'd even held the umbrella over them when John's hands had shaken too much to keep much of a grip on it.

"It's still early, we could get food?" Sherlock turned from his position at the window and John had to hide his yawn behind his hand. He was exhausted, emotionally, physically... all of it. He just wanted to go home.

"If you'd like."

John thought about it then nodded.

"I'll phone Clara and see-"

"She's gone out with her sister."

"How- never mind," he muttered not questioning. He turned back to the TV, flicking the channels.

"I'm going to shower and change before we go out."

John turned to Sherlock and nodded, taking in his slightly bedraggled state. "I should probably go back to my room and change too."

Sherlock appraised him and John shifted under the gaze, suddenly feeling pinned to the bed with the stare.

"Yes. You look like you've been to a funeral."

John laughed but Sherlock was already in the bathroom, one of his suit-carriers with him. He heard the shower turn on and he settled back against the pillows he'd propped up against the headboard and closed his eyes for a moment. Just for a moment.

When he opened his eyes again, the room was still bright but with a different light. He shifted and something moved over his shoulders; a sheet had been pulled up over him and his head was nestled in between two pillows and he was lying flat out on the bed.

"I took the liberty of retrieving your bag and checking you out of your room." He jumped at the sound of the voice, flipping onto his back and blinked at the still bleary image of Sherlock standing at the bottom of the bed, a small smirk on his lips. "Good morning."

John groaned.

"Morning?"

"Yes, morning. Now get up, we have a train to catch."

**xxviii**

Somewhere just passed the border, Sherlock turned to John.

"Are you all right?"

John sighed and looked up from his paper (who knew there was a Scottish version of the Daily Express?).

"Yes, I'm fi-" Sherlock glared at him at the first utterance of the word and John bit it back. He licked his lips and looked away from Sherlock's imploring eyes. He tried to remember how to breathe and after a few seconds, he looked back up and met Sherlock's eyes. "I will be."

Somewhere just outside London, John turned to Sherlock and touched his fingertips to the other man's wrist.

"Sherlock?" The other man hummed but didn't open his eyes. "Thank you."

The eyelids slid upwards and John met the grey stare, matched it's warmth and smiled slightly. Sherlock hesitated a moment before nodding once and looking out the window.

"Any time."

END


End file.
